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World War 1: Paris 1919 A MOOC from the University of Glasgow
World War 1: Paris 1919 – A New World: University of Glasgow [Three Weeks]
100% Coming out of the MA in British Military History with a Postgraduate Certificate and 60 credits after one year it was good to take part in something carried by a leading academic. A challenge is worth taking on when there is something new to learn and understand. The WW1 theme hooked the interest and most students expected to stay there. Even if off my brief I was nonetheless happy to go the distances stretching out through WW2 and the creation and early history of the United Nations.
Week 7 ‘Start Writing Fiction’ The OU @ FutureLearn
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| From E-Learning V |
Fig.1. My mashup from the FutureLearn App using Studio
I continue to wonder what impact FutureLearn will have on future models for e-learning platforms. I turn screengrabs into aide memoires like the one above.
Comments on the ‘Start Writing Fiction’ threads are now down from 3000 per thread to a few hundred … a fall out of 95% is usual for a myriad of reasons. It’ll be interesting to find out how many make it to the end … and in due course who ends up a published author, and most especially how many migrate from a FREE MOOC to a paid-for course with The OU. I have a sense that most on the module are over 60 and broke.
We’ve just listened to a handful of authors talking about the importance of reading.
I found this insightful and helpful across the board. I relate to Louis de Bernieres in terms of reading habits – different authors, same approach entering and re-entering writing/reading modes in months … something I need to change i.e. write, edit and read a daily pattern. Patricia Duncker says she read and views everything – a philosophy of Francois Truffaut who I was a fan of, especially trashy novels in his case. And from Alex Garner I see the value of seeing a novel as a screenplay, even as a director setting scenes, something incidentally Hilary Mantel talks about in an OU / BBC interview – write in scenes. Succinct. No messing. It relates to her understanding of how we reader in the 21st century – that we are used to and know the snappiness of the movie and TV. She says that the lengthy descriptions of Victorian novels are no longer palatable. I take from this that we have far too great a vivid view of the world. We know what slums, jungles and places globally look like. We see through time in documentaries, and film and now online. You mention the mud of Passchendaele and most people can picture it from commonly shared photographs and documentaries. An editing exercise reduced 500 words to 50. Most novice writers grossly overwrite. This OU MOOC favours pithy craft.
Start writing fiction: a free MOOC through FutureLearn with The OU
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| From E-Learning V |
Fig.1 Something I wrote 40 years ago ! (age 13)
The last five weeks I’ve been following the FutureLearn MOOC ‘Start Writing Fiction’.
Extraordinary. I’m on my second pass. I came through early, and now return not wanting to get ahead of the conversation. Particularly useful as I am actively writing at the moment, so this is the best of all learning because it is applied. Regarding character it about giving them shape, depth and ‘points of interest’ – more 6D than even the 2D we are asked to get away from. I visualise characters as hedgehogs with many prickles, but only a few of these matter to the story – though all of them matter to the notebook which I’m gradually coming to care about more and more, cursing the times I ‘have a thought’ and don’t get it down somewhere safely. I am hugely pleased to be here and very proud to be an OU graduate already – not, sadly, from this faculty: yet!
I’m finding the oddest of balances in my life too:
- Writing for myself from 4.00am to 8.00am.
- Picking up work from 10.00am.
- Evenings from 5.00pm to 9.00pm
I am often ‘poolside’ teaching or coaching swimmers.
Delighting yesterday evening to be back with some squad swimmers I last saw four years ago – now in the mid teens, some achieving amazing things in the water, all at that gangly stage of youth development my own children have come through in the last year.
The issue then is how or where or why I fit in the OU module L120 I committed to. Learning a language is daunting and outside my comfort zone. What I do know now, not surprisingly, is that all learning comes about as a result of concerted and consistent effort over a long period of time.
What happens when connected as ‘like-minds’ six or seven such individuals ‘collaborate’ to perform some atrocity?
Fig.1. Dr. No.
Society online is a society on speed and at speed – it might reflect society but in the Alice in Wonderland World Wide Web everything is faster, connectable and so warped in a way that transcends human scales of time, distance and decency. One sick, warped, isolated individual seeking out the pollution of the web to feed their fantasy and make it real, like Anders Behring Breivik in Norway in 2011 was, if you profile the population, 1 in 10 million.
What happens when connected as ‘like-minds’ six or seven such individuals ‘collaborate’ to perform some atrocity?
What indeed does the web afford ‘networked’ terrorist idealists such as AL Qaeda? Attending a seminar on cyber crime at the Oxford Internet Institute last year it was revealing and shocking to learn of the ‘game of catch-up’ played between the criminals hacking bank accounts and the banks trying to keep them secure. The head of internet security from Barclays painted a picture that would make the scriptwriters of a James Bond movie go googled-eyed in amazement. Then, far from society creating the Web, the web world infects us ‘on the other side’ with paranoia and so CHANGES behaviour, gets AHEAD of society.
It has happened to me more than once – in the early days of blogging back in 2002 I was ‘flamed’ viciously (malicious hate in comments and a breach into my blog that had this person editing my content and filling it with bile). I had this stopped and attempts were made to trace the character but for a period I was convinced that any vehicle pulling up along our street outside our house was ‘him’ … and then this summer I put webcams around the house when we went away from a few weeks and only after the first week did I relax when I noticed that a brick hadn’t come through the window and we hadn’t been burgled or the house burned down.
(I write this while reflecting on the words of Professor Susan Halford in the Week 3 introductory video on cyber crime that forms part of the University of Southampton‘s Future Learn offering ‘Web Science‘).
‘The Web is part of society and is shaped by society. And until the web is a crime-free zone, the Web won’t be a crime-free zone’. (Halford, S 2013. Page 1 of the transcript. University of Southampton)
REFERENCE
Webber, C. and Yip, M. (2012), ‘Drifting on and off-line: Humanising the cyber criminal’, in S. Winlow and R. Atkinson (Eds.), New Directions in Deviancy: Proceedings from the York Deviancy Conference, London: Routledge, pp. 191-205
Activity Theory meets network theory?
Fig.1. The connectedness of activity theory pyramids in a new paradigm.
Three years ago I took an interest in Activity Theory, which is a set of six nodes representing a formal ‘community of practice’ – Yrjo Engestrom meets Etienne Wenger. The principles of Activity Theory, linked and driven with an objective are breaking down because of the connectedness of people circumventing these superimposed channels – what I did was to start to draw six activity theory pyramids each interacting on a common object but with additional links connecting all the nodes. I was simplifying the complex intuitively – now I see there is some science to be done here with both quantitative and qualitative research.
Fig.2. Does connectedness across an activity theory pyramid circumvent the silo-like nodes?
Is this going to work?
This is music to my ears – it’s magic to feel your thinking has taken a turn and you find that there is a community of people there already. I took an interest in Activity Theory (Yrjo Engestrom) a few years ago and have used his six node pyramid as part of a small network, I’ve used it to explain creativity between two people believing that part of the network had to be embedded in each person’s brain but not knowing how to show or justify this … and wanting not to lose the simple model as connectedness in the Web circumvents the formal nodes and links that traditional activity theory requires. I then started to interlink sets of six activity theory pyramids recognising that with greater complexity the clarity is lost. I can now move on from conjecture and look at models of networks created from the data while seeking to explain what is happening through good old human interaction – exploratory interviews i.e. qualitative research. Fascinating.
REFERENCE
Engestrom (2008). From Teams to Knots (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives) (p. 238). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.
Factors that led to the creation of the Web
A neurobiologist would argue that all manifestations of human inventiveness stem from our ability to think in metaphors and therefore to be able to see beyond our current reality. The authors and thinkers who have imagined and tried to create a library of everything, an index of everything, a microfiche or computer of evrything are many: H G Wells and Douglas Adam, Vanevar Bush, Thomas Bodley …. Regarding the issue of the origins or history of the Web’s inception it is a complex and massive human story, indeed, like the roots of a growing tree as a mirror to what is going on above the ground, it has the potential to fill many volumes and to occupy many minds. Perspective is everything – education, culture, personal experience, personality and academic discipline – each would offer a different perspective. Pressing on with a biological metaphor perhaps like the origins of life on earth we can nonetheless start from a specific moment – the equivalent of those first cells that began to split and evolve?
Web Sciences Visualizing Web usage
Fig. 1 My Google search History – last 24 hours.
Responding to an activity in the Future Learn open, MOOC from Web Sciences and the University of Southampton.
I use an iPhone, iPad, iMac and mini Mac. Nuts I know, but rotate or mix between them all across 24 hours depending where I am.
Due to current family hiatus something is always on so that whether it is a text message, Facebook message or email I can respond. Births, marriages and death are real and current reasons to feel that the private tendrils of connectivity are vital and vibrant, indeed with immediate family ages 6 to 87 all but a couple probably have a smart device in their pocket or at their fingertips as I type. Locations: all four corners of the UK, Cape Town, California and New Zealand. Sharing this and other FutureLearn programmes with some of them (10 nephews and nieces, three siblings, in-laws, step-parents and cousins).
What kind of sites do you visit most?
In the last 24 hours I have found, researched, priced and purchased a car. Vital as for family reasons we are going to be spending a good deal of time split between more than one household – not far in global terms or even for many living say in North America, but 137 miles with the M25 in between is a distance that can either take 2 ½ hours to cover of 4 or 5 hours.
Two days ago I posted a ‘Tutor Marked Assignment’ to the Open University module I am doing, aptly called The networked practitioner.
With that deadline met I have space to do other things. This includes, and it is not recognised here, is a regular two to three hours reading and note taking for a Masters degree in History. This traditional distance course is all books, reading and a monthly face-to-face day of lectures, seminars and tutorial – not having any, or much, online existence it is in e-learning and in 21st century terms ‘dead in the digital ocean of Web 2.0 learning’.
I have blogged since 1999 and in WordPress since 2007. The blog is many things: an e-portfolio, a niche social network, a platform for my current and sometimes considered thinking on a range of topics which currently include, in a blog each: e-learning, and the First World War – with previous content on creative writing, parenting, swim coaching – even books of condolences when a colleague has passed away, and ditto for my own parents.
What kinds of service do they provide you?
This snapshot shows how I use Which? online to make a purchase decision, then use online banking to manage funds, and to check and purchase, in this case, car insurance. I blog niche topics, no longer a journal as such though I kept a diary for a couple of decades. If I took that up again it would be forever ink on paper to avoid the risk of content being stored and thus made available to anyone forever. I live online, learning online but also active in social network, more professionally in LinkedIn groups, less so in Google hangouts and strictly for immediate family and friends on Facebook.
Recently, having been an e-learning evangelist and purist I am happily returning to reading books and taking notes – though my preference is to have the eBook for all the tricks and habits I have developed highlighting, grabbing, bookmarking, sharing and noting stuff as I read. I will photo printed pages to mash-up and annotate rather than mark the printed page.
What interests of yours and what areas of your life is the Web involved in, or not involved in?
Over a decade ago a small band of us debated privacy and presence online and opted for considerable exposure – in those innocent days testing the water of spilling the contents of our brains to each other, to strangers, felt revolutionary and ahead of the curve. Though this ‘behaviour’ has changed I continue to blog continuously, and to join in multiple forums as my approach to learning, like language learning, is to immerse yourself in it. Given a background in TV and video production my ‘moving image’ pressence has been limited to excerpts from professional work. I feel I will be embracing DIY production once more iminently – a tough adjustment as I came through the production ranks nearly three decades ago learning the practicalities of video shooting and editing and coming to rely on others to do this rather than as I did in the earliest part of my career doing it all myself. We live in a DIY ‘user generated’ culture were authenticity means you shot and edited the content yourself. All that I need to refresh or learn can be found online, much of it for free.
Academically I am venturing towards academia as an observer of how others behave because of what the Web affords, though my inclination as a ‘doer’ and participant might simply see my blogging turning into a broadcast – I have a drama-reconstruction project related to the First World War ‘in development’.
Web Networks – from the micro to the macro
We are each unique – our brains make us so. At the microlevel the network in our heads is then tickled out into the the Web in, at first. the simplest of ways. Our first post, our first comment is that first baby-step. Unlike our firsf steps though, online everything we do is saved, is monitored, is shared. It takes on a life of its own. Multiplied billions of times now many millions of us have learnt to crawl, then walk, then run online. As we are virtual we can split into many versions or parts of ourselves too – the professional and private the immediate split, but then into hobby groups and as here, a study group. The network of networks is a living thing that mathematics can help to weight and categorize, even to visualise, but crucially – the point made here, humanising the maths requires the insight of someone asking questions, seeking to interpret what it taking place. I see currents in a digital ocean that transpires into a cloud that then precipitates digital artefacts in a myriad of other places. Others, like Yrjo Engegstrom, see the growing tendrils of a funghi. Either way it is fascinating to condense, simplify and sharing the thinking.
On the future of learning institutions
Just because an ‘editor’ contributes to content in Wikipedia does not make them an authority. Imagine a feature film or documentary made where anyone can chip in and perform whatever role they fancy. Does this not pander to the poser and the ignorant?
Reflections of a post-post graduate – the no-man’s land before a PhD
Fig. 1. How the eBrain looks – everything’s tagged. (Lost property, London Underground)
I’m delighted to say the Open University’s student blog upgrade is an enhancement. The improvements are seamless without any loss of what we had before … a ‘bulletin-board-cum-blog-thingey’.
Become an OU student to see this for yourself.
I will get Internet access in my ‘office’ – a studio down the road, away from home and family, DIY, the garden … but not the dog. She’s allowed.
All that it requires from me is something I lack – self-discipline NOT to get distracted by email, which includes updated postings from forums and the likes of Linkedin (let alone a gaggle of family members on Facebook). AOL is the worst as I innocently go to check email and find 20 minutes later I am still clicking through the inviting gobbets of news and sensation that is offered.
I had hoped to behave like the smoker trying to give up – I’ll only smoke other people’s fags. A very, very, very long time ago … I can honestly say I have never smoked a cigarette since I turned 20.
Back to the Internet. Like Television.
Or diet. We are living in an age where self-control is vital. Having not had a TV for several months I was eventually pushed to buy one. Courtesy of Which? we now have a TV so Smart that it probably tells my brother in South Africa who is watching what …. we can Skype sofa to sofa. I just wonder if our antics could be recorded and posted on YouTube? Not my doing but any of the teenagers with the wherewithal just hit a record button somewhere.
In all this hi-tech I DO have a tool I’d recommend to anyone.
I’ve invested in an hour-glass. In runs for 30 minutes. While that sand is running all I may do is read and take notes. This might be an eBook, or a printed book, either way they are on a bookstand. I take notes, fountain pen to lined paper. What could be easier? The left hand may highlight or bookmark and turn a page, while the right writes?
This works as the filtering process of the knowledge that I am reading and want to retain needs to go through several steps in any case. The handwritten notes will be reduced again as I go through, typing up the ideas that have some resonance for me.
My current task has been ‘How Europe went to war in 1914’ by Christopher Clark.
I doubt my second thorough read will be the last. From notes I will start posting blogs and going into related social platforms to share and develop thoughts and in so doing be corrected while firming up my own views. I need this social interaction, to join the discussion if not the debate.
Meanwhile I will revisit Martin Weller‘s book on Digital Scholarship.
However swift the age of the Internet may be he suggests it will still take a person ten years to achieve the ‘scholar’ level … whereas John Seely Brown recently reckoned this was now down to five years. i.e. through undergraduate and postgraduate levels and popping out the other end with a PhD in five years.
DIdn’t an 18 year old who was home schooled just get called to the Bar?
She graduated with a law degree while contemporaries did A’ Levels and finished High School and then did a year of pupilage I suppose.
The intellectual ‘have’s’ of the future will, by one means of another, achieve degree status at this age. The Internet permits it.
School is far, far, far, far, far too lax.
It tends to the median if not the mediocre. Long ago it found a way to process kids as a genderless year group instead of treading each student as an individual … so let them skip a year, let them stay back a year … allow them to expand and push subjects that appeal to them.
Mind Bursts 